Why Are People with Health Insurance Going Bankrupt?

[JayhawkSD]

10. Insurance is only part of the problem, and a smaller part to boot.

"The ACA simply provided the insurance industry with a mandated monopoly,"

Well, not really, since there is more than one insurance company and, in theory, they compete with other for the available business. ACA made that business mandated rather than voluntary, but it certainly did not give all of that business to one insurance provider. Ironically, single payer would have created a monopoly, which would have been vastly better for our economy.

What does create pernicious monopolies is state governments and their licensing practices, which results on only one, or very few, insurance providers in individual locations. That is not a product of ACA and it has been going on for many years. It's well intended, to prevent insurance companies from ripping off customers, but it has backfired. Insurance companies still rip people off, and they do so at higher prices.

"with weak price controls, thus the insurance industry is pretty much free to charge what they want"

Well, not really. With the 80% limit insurance companies cannot charge unlimited amounts for premiums. The downside is that they are essentially guaranteed a substantial profit margin.

The real driver of our high cost of health care is not insurance, it is the health care providers. Insurance companies do not generate health care costs, they actually pay those costs. Those costs are generated by hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmaceuticals, and doctors. The insurance is in the middle. It's the health care providers that we should be heaping our criticism on.

The people who are "charging whatever they want" are, to repeat, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmaceuticals, and doctors.